


Where Reflections Lie

by bluemermaid



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Depression, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 05:02:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3475436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluemermaid/pseuds/bluemermaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mirror provides.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Reflections Lie

The mirror stands tall before him.

James sits on the floor in the middle of the room, his hands pressed up against the cool glass surface of the mirror. It is dark inside, where reflections lie, and James stares intently, wishing and wondering and wanting.

They don't resist him there in the darkness. They come to his side willingly, gentle and smiling, and they wrap their arms around him and press their lips to his skin. James is draped in the clothing of victory, blood-stained and brilliant. He is wearing his father's medals. They cheer his name and toast their drinks up high.

James seeks glory and brilliance, lovers and friends that he can't manage to find in his dull world of reality, dreary and boring. People outside the mirror room don't see James Potter when they look at him. They see nobody, just another useless little boy in the endless sea. If he could only grab the chance to prove himself, surely he would be adored by those who look through his body now.

But the mirror provides. When James wants it just enough, when he asks it just right, he slips through the barrier, liquid glass cold as he slides through. The rush of bodies feels better than he could have imagined, and his heart races as he drinks down his prize, quenching his thirst in the limited amount of time he is able.

He always wakes up in the mirror room, his limbs spread out wide as he stares up at the ceiling. They feel so real, his mirror dreams, but he always feels fine when he wakes. He always feels fine.

 

"James, you're not eating," says his mother, and James stuffs a forkful of food into his mouth. It doesn't taste like anything.

"James, you're not eating," Lily mimics, smirking at her brother. "Worried about something?"

"No," says James, glowering across the table at her. He looks over at Albus, who shrugs without making eye contact. Albus is useless.

"I think you are," Lily says. "I think it's about that girl next door. She waved at you yesterday! Jamie's got a girlfriend, Jamie's got a girlfriend."

"I don't," says James. He is angry, but at the same time it doesn't matter. They can do what they like, his weak little siblings. It doesn't interfere with his dreams. "You'd better shut your mouth."

Lily sticks her tongue out at him; there is chewed up food plastered to it. James makes a face, his stomach turning in disgust.

"Lily, stop teasing your brother," their mother says, but there is no emotion in her words. She is looking at their father, who fakes a smile and doesn't pay any attention to his family. Lily sniggers behind her hand and kicks James under the table. Albus just keeps eating methodically.

James's family is never in the mirror room.

 

James remembers when his parents used to love their family. His memories are like Galleons at the bottom of a fountain, glittering and blurry and impossible to get back once they're gone. James's father used to spend time with his children, laughing and playing games with them. He would bring home presents from work. James's mother taught her children to fly. James still feels like he's flying, but only when he's in the mirror room.

Then James's mother lost her job, and James's father had to start taking on more cases to make ends meet, and the both of them grew weary and sad, with tight little wrinkles at the corners of their darkened eyes. They don't laugh anymore.

Albus locked himself in his bedroom and refused to speak to anyone. James was furious with his brother for abandoning him, but he stopped caring so much after he found his mirror. And Lily had always been rotten, so James didn't feel the loss of her at all. 

James has his own family now, an army of admirers in his own private world. It's fantastic.

 

James wakes up on the floor again, and at first he can't see anything. He is trapped inside a world of darkness, and a wave of oppressive heat threatens to smother him. James lies on the carpet and struggles to breathe, shutting his eyes tight and thinking of nothing but air.

His lungs open wide after one long moment of pain, and James feels the air coursing through his system once again. It doesn't worry him. He feels this way sometimes after coming back, the path through the mirror tight and painful to cross. It's not enough to stop him from going in again, because he's always fine when he gets his bearing back. He's always fine.

 

"James, you don't look so good," Albus says, but James just stares at him before turning away pointedly. He's gone years without a proper conversation with his brother, and he isn't about to start speaking now. That's Al's fault.

James doesn't look so good because he's been suffering for months without his mirror. Every day at Hogwarts is like a nightmare, one in which James cannot perform magic and everybody frowns at him. James eats only enough food to survive, and if his stomach is starting to cave in, that's nobody's fault but the school's itself.

James wants to go home, but not the home where his parents live.

 

"Oh, James, you're so incredible." The woman beneath him has no face; she is a shifting whirlwind of color, silky blonde hair in his fingers and wet heat on his cock. James thrusts into her with little startled gasps. He has never felt like this before.

The mirror provides whatever he needs, and right now James needs a fuck. He's never had one in the other world, the so-called reality of his life of nothing, and so he seeks one here in his dark paradise, and finds her. In his past, James would be showered with innocent kisses and hugs from women such as this. But James is growing older now.

He doesn't wonder where these people come from. He doesn't wonder who they are. He doesn't wonder if fucking a girl here means he's lost his virginity back home. It doesn't matter, really, because this world is more real to him than the other now.

He looses his seed within the faceless body, gripping at cold breasts and grunting as his head pounds. The woman sighs with content and nuzzles at his chest, invisible tongue slick against his nipples. James crushes her body to his with a sudden rush of gratitude. He doesn't have to say anything out loud. The people here all know his heart.

 

"I'm not going back to Hogwarts," James yells, smashing a glass against the counter.

His mother is furious. "You're finishing your education, James," she replies, magicking the glass back to its pristine newness. A shame, that she cannot use such a spell on her son. "There's no reason for you to quit school."

"I am quitting, and you can't stop me," James insists. He sees Albus hovering at the edge of his sight and it makes him feel murderous. "What the fuck are you looking at?" He shouts, whirling on his brother. "Get the fuck out of here."

"James, stop it!" James's mother has tears in her eyes, but James doesn't care. He runs away from all of them, he runs away to his mirror room.

He will not leave his mirror world behind for Hogwarts. There is nothing for him in Gryffindor tower, nothing but blank stares and emptiness. He isn't James there. He isn't James anywhere.

They pound on the door to his mirror room, but James isn't there to hear them.

 

James lifts his arms above his head and shouts, a primal scream of all the ecstasy he is feeling. Dark hands snake around his limbs and torso and pull him down into a veritable orgy of sensation. Lips and caresses, hissing whispers of adoration. They love James; they know James; they feed him and they feed upon him.

James tries to leave but they hold on, their fingers tight around his wrists. Sharp teeth bite into his shoulders, and arms tighten their hold around his chest. James laughs it off and reaches for the doorway, that cold watery gate leading back to the empty mirror room. The bodies grow darker and less tangible, yet their hold increases, and James feels himself slipping back into their midst. 

They know every inch of his soul. They know that James does not want to truly return to the land of depressed family members and empty rooms. They know it and they keep him here, in this darkness where he is safe, where he's loved. James is hot, sweating, and they tug at him, they bite through his skin and make him bleed.

James can't leave, but that's all right, isn't it? He's always wanted to be here. He left it all, left school and family, just to be here amongst the dark ones who adore him. James is strong and brave, covered in medals and with a thousand glorious deeds to his name. James is a Potter, a real one, not one of the empty shells that wander through the dim reality. There is no colour here or anywhere else, so what does it matter where he stays?

Lungs constrict and breathing is difficult, but James allows himself to be buried beneath them. If this is love, why should he fight it? This is love. He needed love, and the mirror provided, as it always does.

Their kisses burn his skin.

 

Wood splinters as the door bursts open, and a burst of crackling orange magic fades into the musty air. Albus steps into the mostly empty room, his eyes widening as he takes in the large mirror standing in the center of the floor.

His parents sent him to retrieve his brother, older brother James with his caustic looks and frighteningly dark eyes. They've all been worried about him for ages now, years, as Albus slowly turns invisible beside him. James is darkness and anger; Lily is laughter and electricity. Albus is nothing.

And in the end they couldn't even have bothered to find the body themselves, sending their little minion, his father's spitting image with nothing underneath. They sent Al to find his brother, and in doing so they passed a sentence upon them both. _We only pretend to care._

James is lying on the floor just before the mirror. Albus approaches carefully, waiting for the usual reaction, the swearing and cursing as James again lashes out at his brother. But there is nothing at all; James lies still. Albus pokes him with the toe of his shoe.

There is a smile on his brother's face; Albus stares in wonder. James hasn't smiled in a decade. But here he is smiling now, with his face and his body so still. There is a hollow emptiness in his eyes.

Al touches James's face and shrinks back at the cold firmness of it. He knows that James is dead, but it doesn't make sense, and so he stares and he stares and he keeps on staring until he feels like his entire body has sunken through the floor and left only a ghost staring down at another ghost. He wants to scream.

The mirror's presence is large and foreboding, a dark shadow cast over the two young men. Albus looks at it because he can no longer bear to look at his brother, and he is startled by the sight of James in the mirror. James looks happy, almost as happy as he looks just there on the floor in reality. But the James in the mirror is very much alive and moving. He reaches over and hugs the reflection of his brother. Al's mouth is open and his eyes are wide as saucers.

He wishes he could be there with James, that things could go backwards through time until they were young and happy together. Those memories are there somewhere. The mirror shows them to him, and Albus moves nearer, pressing his hands to the glass. He wishes he could be there in that darkness, to gain those memories back. He wishes and wants and wonders, and the mirror provides. The mirror always provides.


End file.
